Don't Let the Days Go By Glycerine

It's the time of year when the sun wakes me and I'm not too cold to stay in bed and not too hot to wrestle out. I close one eye and use the other to look into Puhg's. I decide, urgently, I need to go to a matinee at the movies today. I book the 1 PM Nosferatu in the huge theatre with recliners. I do the Espresso dance work-out and time my shower to be ten minutes flat. I feel determined to make it to the cafe before 8:40, so I can have a few choice minutes with my honey. I fold my vegan bacon slices into quarters so I can eat them in single bites. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. I decide on my black joggers and pink thrifted Scream crewneck. I wear the t-shirt I wore to bed, honestly.

I make it down the street by 8:32. The jolliest barista is in a mask and got a cool haircut. I have too much oat milk and Puhg has too little, so I do some extraction shots with my straw, like a surgeon. We talk about people's odd need to defend systems that don't even serve them and spaghetti vs. waffles. I read two sections of Women Who Run with the Wolves, about the mystical meaning of dolls and naiveté, then jot a list of my favorite art of 2024. I look through my notes from my first play read-through. No one has read a word of this thing yet, and I'm getting nervous. It is boring? I wonder, then, later, no it's it's not boring...it's too cringe to share to even find out if it's boring. I rewrite the notes in better handwriting, with more structure. I outline which scenes I think need reordering and which can be hacked or collapsed. I have to cut about 50 minutes, if not 60! I've never overwritten to this degree! I try to sign a contract for a conglomerate. They forgot to do some paperwork months ago. Two hours after I say I'll review the documents and send them back, they ping me, saying they'd really like the signatures now. I think about all the responses I want to fire off: well I don't actually work for you right now shall I bill you for an hour or two for the rush delivery I have my own life I have other jobs you've actually never ever asked me a single question about myself your folly is not my emergency chill out we live on a rock in space on which everything is controlled by a fake paper currency with no real value. But instead I walk home, open my laptop, sign the documents, and write, "Here you go!"

My friend asked me to note his screenplay. I've read five of his projects. He's worked with me so long that my rate has more than tripled since we met. I still discount him, which isn't great business, but sometimes other things matter more. The first act was hilarious, two and three could use shaping. I type up my findings while fielding all the Coffee Pings. Coffee Pings are so cute and validating and a tiresome never-ending Hollywood boulder to roll. One of my Conglomerate Producers is tapping me for a different comedy project and wants breakfast Thursday. The social outreach gal from the activism group wants to Zoom about my play. The college director checks in about the Saturday reading start time, yes 7 is great and I'm bringing a new scene I exclaim. My old college professor pitches an idea for a guest lecture. The most whimsical playwright I know texts thank you for my contributions to her writers' group yesterday: "smart thoughtful kind meeting everyone where they’re at - just so good." She wrote this incredible piece about a haggard woman who runs a grant program for a sociopath and I laughed my butt off reading it. Another bite from an LA director about a regional theatre producer I should know, I say I'll follow up. Grief asks if I can attend a game night with executives next week and Buckle says we're overdue for face time so I open my calendar and volley 16th afternoon in WeHo and Roll: "Want to get a coffee sometime soon? I would like to sit in your glow for a bit :-) " A trickle of gals RSVPing yes for our next gab sesh. Different Conglomerate says their client is two months late on my notes, but go ahead and bill for the commercial now. That random $300 gig money gets wired. I get overwhelmed and text Gos about how horrified I am that we've been witnessing/normalizing a genocide for over a year! I'm sorry but it makes me completely break-down once a week or so! I'm seeing dead children every day! Intentionally dead children! With bullet wounds in their heads! How are we just walking around listening to pop music and eating pretzel bites!

Thirty minutes later I'm in the AMC parking lot blasting "Karma" and pre-ordering cinnamon pretzel bites. I smuggle in my own can of Diet Cherry Coke. Everyone flipping loved this film, and it just didn't hold me. That's fine, I'm glad I went. Three other people were in there. I clapped for Nicole Kidman alone. I reemerged like a vampire from her crypt at golden hour. I walked along the busy street to the promenade, fully basking in the California winter. Got a falafel bowl. The owner was scooping hummus today. I trotted around remembering being a teen at the mall. When I got back to my car I decided to do another lap, then another. The line was long at In N Out, two girls drink Frappuccinos, I pass an unhoused woman with hair over her face one way and again on the way back. Notably, she has a new Target bag.

I decide not to play music and take the long way home, through the park, by the old zoo. It's a gorgeous windows-down winding drive. The runners are out and the kind of cars who don't rush to be the first to zip through an intersection. I'm very proud of how I timed it all. The darkness, just creeping up on the skyline as I pull into my apartment gate. Puhg came into the bedroom and sat on the bed. We thought about if things we do are responses to or reflections of our stimuli. He went on a walk, so I wrote this. Felt like listening to Glycerine by Bush.

We live in a wheel where everyone steals / but when we rise it's like strawberry fields.

Where Is He Now?

G was 60 or so when he worked at the ice cream shop in the mall. He had curly grey and white hair. He was always in a good mood and usually in some mild pain. He moved slowly. Once, he explained, it's because he went to his daughter's house and had to walk home. I had a lot of questions about what that meant but didn't ask. He said he got home at 4 AM. Was the walk that long or did he leave that late? Sometimes he told me stories that included a lot of 60s slang I didn't fully grasp, so I was always worried he'd already explained something about his life to me last week. I didn't want to make him think I wasn't listening.

The job was simple enough--mainly because I was never trained to do most of what we were supposed to do. I know this for a fact because one day a corporate rep showed up unannounced. I kind of made a show of trying to clean the scoops a little more intensely before she finally sighed and said, "Just work as though I'm not here." I did, and then we got an F on every section of the evaluation sheet besides "Hospitality" (for which I got an A -- insert angel emoji).

I was often alone, but G had some regular hours, so that's when we'd be paired up. Mostly people ordered a cup or cone, but once, a week into working together, someone ordered a sundae. G got a little nervous, like "oh great, something fancy." I said I'd make it, and G would not stop gassing me up for the rest of the day. "It looked just like a magazine picture!" he said. Whenever someone ordered a sundae for the rest of the season he'd point to me and explain something like, "You are not going to believe how good she can do it!" A kiosk nearby sold some weird wind chime music. We'd hear the same quirky hour of music on repeat all day sometimes. One of the songs was, "Our God Is an Awesome God." After a long day I said, I'm tired of Our Awesome God." And G said, "Oh but he's not tired of you!"

I remember one morning G was particularly happy. He just got a new job, he beamed, working in the refrigerator department of Sears. I congratulated him and asked when he was leaving. He clarified it was only half time, just like his hours at the ice cream shop. But the next day I overheard the store owner talking with our manager. "G got a new job, which is a relief, so we don't have to feel bad about firing him." We never said goodbye.

And So I Cried at California Pizza Kitchen

Against my own desires I had to go shopping tonight. I needed another collared shirt for my show. I hate shopping. I really do. It's so annoying. But, surprisingly, I can't figure out if I like malls or not. I usually avoid them because I hate shopping. I hate shopping because usually*

A) You need something and you absolutely cannot find it.
B) You don't need something but you have found so many things you want!
1) They look horrible on you. You are depressed.
2) They look awesome...and expensive. You are depressed.

But also malls are clean, smell like cinnabons, and play fun music. So. I like that. But, also people. So...jury's still out.

ANYWAY you don't care what I think of malls. You want to know about the drama I hooked you with in the title. I'm getting there! Okay, so I was at the mall finding a shirt, which I victoriously found. I was also going to treat myself to a movie. I was in the film seeing spirit, and I love to go to movies alone. But, after some phoning I realized my sister was also shopping, and she wanted dinner. And I hadn't eaten! So, she came to the mall I was at, but then she had to buy something, and then we were only going to have a little more than half an hour at dinner. No big. CPK's fast.

YOU THINK I'M GOING TO CRY BECAUSE I MISS THE MOVIE! Well, yeah, I miss the movie, but also...that's not it.

So, I get a salad that looks really really good. Thai peanut something with edamame and crispies. Mmmm, and I ask to substitute the chicken with avocado. Mmmmm and then the food comes. Mmmm but it doesn't look like there are avocados. So I ask the waiter, and he says I thought I wanted chicken and NOT avocados. Okay. Clearly he messed up right? Because how is that possible? Why would I ask him to substitute something in the original dish for something not in it? Right?

So he said he'd bring another and took the salad. But, I know what happens to food waiters take THE GARBAGE THAT'S WHAT! So I started to get really nervous. It's so difficult when that happens. I don't want to eat chicken, but I don't want it to be thrown away, and suddenly all these little starving children were dancing in my brain. Well, they were too weak to dance, crawling more like it. And so. I started to cry.

So instead of me having a panic attack my sister offered to buy both salads and take the chickenful one to a meat-eating friend. The waiter said the wrong salad was on the house. I was relieved. It's was much later because of food conundrums, but whatever. I wish this kind of thing made me lovable. I think it just makes me insane.

*I actually tried to make a flow chart depicting my experiences at malls, but after like five minutes of trying I realized I still couldn't figure out what the "graphic" button was. That was the first step.